


Love Nest

by Jinko



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 3x666 didn't end with Terry finding them, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:42:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinko/pseuds/Jinko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the many stages of Fiona figuring out Ian and Mickey are together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Nest

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [爱的小窝](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2625578) by [Xianyun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xianyun/pseuds/Xianyun)



“When did I adopt another Milkovich?” Fiona scowled when she saw Mickey in the lounge on the couch beside Carl, a remote control in hand as they played against each other with an Xbox she didn’t know they had. She was sure she’d sold it.

Fiona had grabbed Lip on the way back into the lounge with four beers and Lip looked in on his two brothers and the two Milkoviches in the other room.

“God, Fi, I hope you haven’t adopted _any_ Milkoviches.”

“He’s had dinner with us three nights in a row now. It’s starting to feel a lot like Molly all over again, only he doesn’t sleep here. If he’s hiding out here during the day ’cause he’s in trouble, he needs to stop it. I’m not having Terry Milkovich’s protégé hiding here if he’s in trouble.”

Lip shrugged his shoulders and moved to continue on to the couch when Fiona grabbed him again.

“And where’s Ian sleeping these nights? He’s gone when Mickey disappears and is in the kitchen somehow the next morning.”

“I dunno. Maybe ask him yourself?”

-

Following the near-catch by Terry and Fiona’s appointed guardianship of the five Gallagher children, Ian and Mickey had gotten a lot closer and a lot more dependent on each other. Mickey had started to avoid his father and his brothers and had started to spend more time with Gallaghers.

What Fiona didn’t know is that Mickey had actually moved in.

Just for now, they had a dirty old mattress on the floor of the basement (which, thankfully, no longer smelt like the meth lab it once was) that they snuck in during the day. It was cramped and crappy and Ian’s feet hung over the edge of the mattress but he fell asleep beside Mickey every night and woke up next to him and it was perfect.

They didn’t cuddle. They just slept beside each other. Sometimes, their arms might brush but they generally rolled away from each other. It was still summer and they didn’t need each other’s heat just yet.

Ian was used to sleeping in a bed too small for him and Mickey was a still-sleeper. They worked.

And they worked without Fiona knowing about them.

-

Fiona was wary about the Milkovich boy. Sometimes, he’d be in the kitchen before she was even up. She found him sitting with Ian and Debbie some mornings, eating _their_ cereal for breakfast. Other times, she’d catch him in their bathroom shaving, but he was apparently using his own razor.

She kept her eyes on the squirrel fund.

She was surprised to find that there was more money there every week than she’d expected. It might have only been ten or twenty dollars at a time, but there was definitely more money in the tin than she or her brothers normally put in.

When they were a few dollars short on their electricity bill, it was Mickey who dug his hand into his pockets and produced the bills they needed to make up the rest of it.

“What’s that for?” Fiona asked when she saw Lip reach over the kitchen table to take his money.

Mickey casually shrugged and while she didn’t see it, Ian’s eyes widened with fear. Whenever someone found out, Mickey fled, and he didn’t want that to happen this time. Not with how close they’d become.

“I watch your TV more than you do,” he answered simply enough and turned to grab a piece of toast from the table.

“Yeah, why’s that again?”

She didn’t get her answer.

Ian and Mickey left for work and when Fiona caught Mickey adding money to the squirrel fund, he just shrugged it off again and disappeared into the living room with a couple of beers for him and Ian.

She still didn’t know where Ian was sleeping.

-

The furniture moved every now and then. That wasn’t uncommon in a family that had a Carl.

Fiona realised, though, that it was mainly around the entrance to the basement.

-

The most confusing part to Fiona was how Mickey was with the kids. It turned out that the Xbox was his and was now permanently living under the television.

He got Debbie a laptop.

Fiona watched with wide eyes as he handed it over one autumn evening after he and Ian had come home (not that this was supposed to be his home, damnit).

Debbie and Fiona had been working on dinner in the kitchen when the duo came through the backdoor. Mickey had the box under one of his arms and Debbie nearly squealed with delight when she spotted it. The vegetables she’d been handling were dropped suddenly and she ran around the bench to where the boys stood.

“Is that for me?” she asked, eyes bright and excited.

Fiona raised an eyebrow. “Why would it be for you?”

“She’s blackmailing me,” Mickey groaned and Ian smiled stupidly as he put his bag down by the wall. Mickey took the box in his hand and shoved it in Debbie’s direction. “Brand new. I didn’t even steal that shit.”

“How’d you get the money for it, though? And what’s she blackmailing you with?”

“That’s the point of the gifts. I pay her and no one finds out.”

Debbie put the laptop on the table and rushed to Mickey to hug him tightly around the waist. “This is _so_ cool.” Dinner was forgotten to her in favour of exploring.

“How’d you get the money?” Fiona repeated and didn’t move from her spot at the bench.

“Sold a few things legitimately.”

Ian laughed and moved around to Fiona’s side to pick up where Debbie left off.

“I call bullshit.”

“Nah, Fi. Remember when he got shot in the ass? Jimmy’s dad hired us to take back a few things his ex-wife wasn’t letting him have and said we could keep anything he didn’t want. It’s all legit.” Ian picked up the knife and continued chopping. “Jimmy’s mom caught him and shot him.

The answer wasn’t what Fiona was hoping for. “I didn’t hear any of that, okay? I don’t want him using his blood-money on us.” She glared at Debbie. “And no more blackmailing people, okay? You got your laptop. That’s enough.”

With a sigh, Debbie flipped her hair and turned to Mickey. “I promise I won’t tell anyone what I saw. We’re even.”

Mickey sat with her and told her all the specs the salesperson told him.

When they were done preparing dinner, Fiona grabbed Ian by his sleeve and dragged him away. “Blackmail? What did Debs see? Something illegal?”

“Not in this country,” Ian had shrugged. He noticed Fiona’s frown and looked her in the eye and said, seriously, “Mickey’s not doing anything stupid and if he was, he wouldn’t get Debbie involved.”

Fiona sighed heavily, put her hands on her hips and returned to the kitchen. “You staying for dinner?”

-

Mickey read to Liam sometimes. It was usually only when he was sure no one else was watching or aware of it.

The first time Fiona saw it, she caught Ian at the boys’ door with a fond smile on his face. She’d never seen him look so soft before and he pretended like it hadn’t happened when he noticed she was watching.

Ian tried to keep her away from the door.

He had no chance.

Fiona stuck her head in and caught Mickey sitting on Ian’s bed with Liam on his lap, a book spread out over Liam’s while Mickey read to him.

She dragged Ian away again.

“Don’t,” she hissed when they were clear in the hall. “A straight kid who happens to be the son of the biggest homophobe in town? Are you stupid?”

“I know what I’m doing, Fi,” Ian argued and it was the first time a conversation about Mickey had Ian sounding upset.

That was the last time Fiona mentioned Ian’s obvious crush on the other boy.

-

He helped Carl out with his math homework. It turned out he was really good with numbers.

Mickey was also the person to put the coffee on every morning, Fiona discovered. She wasn’t sure how he was there every morning to do it, but he was. She began to wonder if someone had given him a set of keys. He wasn’t afraid to help out in the kitchen if it was needed, especially on a school morning.

It wasn’t so bad having him around all the time. His presence seemed to calm Carl down that little bit.

-

They got a new mattress and an actual frame.

It was delivered during the day, while the kids were at school and Fiona was at work. Ian even paid off Kev to keep Frank at the Alibi Room for as long as he could to make sure the delivery went smoothly.

Fiona trusted Mickey to babysit Liam. He was fine in his playpen while the delivery men lowered the double mattress and the flat-pack into the basement under Mickey’s direction.

When Ian got home, they christened it again and again and again.

-

Lip was accepted into MIT. He fought with Mandy and made up with her when he found out just before the Christmas break. Fiona didn’t know what happened there, whether if it was because Mandy was so upset over his need to help out with Karen following the attack or if it was something else.

Mandy was told, though, that if she was living at the house fulltime, she had to chip in with the bills. She got herself a part-time job to help out.

Jimmy disappeared. It broke Fiona’s heart but she gave him a final farewell and his parting gift was a wad of cash.

She used that money to get herself a promotion.

Life started to change for the Gallaghers.

Fiona still didn’t know where Ian was sleeping.

-

“Maybe you should invite your boyfriend to Christmas lunch,” Fiona suggested a few days before the twenty-fifth. She and Ian were sitting outside in the cold, smoking. Frank was inside, doing something neither of them wanted any part of.

“What makes you think I’ve got a boyfriend?”

“Where else could you be sleeping?” She knocked their shoulders together. “I’d like to meet him.”

Ian picked at his nails. “He’s not out. He doesn’t feel safe.”

“He’s safe here.” She patted his knee and headed inside when she heard something break.

-

When Fiona found herself alone in the house, she found the chance to see what was happening around the basement.

It looked like the junk that normally sat in front of the door had been hastily pushed in front of it that morning during the morning rush. There was still a lot of work to be done to get the house ready for Christmas, which had led to the mess.

Fiona moved it aside and headed down the wooden staircase.

There was no way she could have expected what she found.

A new double bed stood in the middle of the basement, covered in a mess of blankets and pillows and Ian’s ROTC sleeping bag. There were clothes on the ground, spread between an overspilling duffle bag and a hamper in the corner. Of the three sets of drawers, only one seemed to be used, sitting by the far side of the bed. Those were new, too. The other two had junk thrown over the tops of them.

The clothes, as far as Fiona could see, were all Mickey’s. She recognised the hoodies and the scarves and the stained jeans.

It explained how he was there in the morning every morning and why he was there every night.

Fiona didn’t know if this meant that he was Ian’s boyfriend or if he really was there because he was keeping out of trouble with his father.

As far as Fiona was concerned, the latter most likely.

There didn’t seem to be any evidence that Ian was living down there with Mickey, not from what she saw.

She turned back and left, leaving the door as covered as it had been before she’d entered.

When Mickey and Ian got back from work, she didn’t say anything but she understood why the first thing Mickey did was add his money into the squirrel fund.

-

The first time Ian woke up with his arms around Mickey, he found it to be very strange.

It seemed, though, that the two of them curled up into each other, seeking out each other’s heat for the night during the winter.

Despite how strange it was for them, neither cared nor made a fuss about it.

It was nice and nice was a welcome addition to their crazy love life.

-

“What’s with all the peppers?”

Both Ian and Mickey’s heads shot up when Debbie asked that with her head stuck in the fridge. It was Mickey who got up from where he was helping Carl with his homework to close the door and shoo her away.

“And mincemeat? That’s a lot of mincemeat. And did I see Ian putting away oregano earlier?”

“I’m cooking dinner tomorrow night,” Mickey explained, much to their surprise.

“Really?” Fiona asked with a raised eyebrow. She was checking on the pizza in the oven. “Since when?”

“I felt like eating my mom’s goulash,” he spoke so nonchalantly, “but I can’t eat it at home with my brothers and my dad. They don’t like having things that remind them of Mom.”

“Present company included,” Mandy groaned as she worked on her own homework.

Ian joined them in the kitchen and wrapped an arm around Debbie’s shoulders. “We got double what the recipe asks for so you can cook it with him and learn how to make it, just in case we all like it.”

That had Debbie’s eyes lighting up. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“Can we invite Kev and V, then?”

“Is there going to be enough?” Fiona asked and Mandy scoffed into her paper.

“Yeah,” Mandy confirmed. “One batch is normally enough for us to have two nights in a row.”

“Christmas is the day after. We’re not eating it for Christmas.”

“It freezes well,” Mickey told her and steered Debbie back to the table.

-

Fiona got up early with the intention of confronting Mickey about his pad under them.

She didn’t expect him to not be alone.

“C’mon, man,” she heard him say breathily before she was all the way down the stairs. She paused and heard the tell-tale smack of lips on skin. “Not out here.”

Fiona stuck her head around the corner, hiding away, and her jaw dropped when she saw Mickey at the coffee maker with Ian behind him. Their bodies were pressed as closely as they could be while still clothed and Ian was peppering the back of Mickey’s neck with kisses while Mickey added the ground coffee to the filtered paper.

“No one’s up,” Ian argued and Fiona could just _hear_ that smile.

“I blew you, like, five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, but that was, like, five minutes ago.”

Mickey shuffled out of Ian’s grasp and filled the pot with water. Ian sighed dejectedly and leant against the bench to watch Mickey.

“You’re stressed.”

“Yeah,” Mickey scoffed and shoved the pot back into its place. He flicked the switch and the machine slowly chugged to life.

“It’s not going to be so bad. We’re safe here with my family. You know that.” Ian’s hands found Mickey’s waist and he pulled him close. Mickey stretched up and kissed him quickly, just a brief peck and turned to watch the coffee percolate.

When he tried to step back away from Ian, Ian’s arms wound around Mickey’s body to hold him. “Seriously, another one of your siblings is gonna walk in on us. It’s bad enough Debbie got away with blackmailing me for that long.”

Ian laughed into Mickey’s neck and kissed him again before letting Mickey go. “Alright. Alright.”

Fiona turned back around and crawled back into bed to let that information stew for a little while.

-

The goulash was a big hit for something that was nothing more than beef mince, bacon, pasta, onions, capsicum, canned corn kernels, tomato soup and a pinch of herbs.

“God _damn_ ,” Veronica smiled with the first bite. She looked over at Fiona. “I’d adopt a Milkovich if it got me some of this.”

“I think Iggy’s free to a good home,” Mandy joked as she picked at the meal.

“So what’s this for?” Lip asked because he always caught on. “It feels like you’re buttering us up or something.” He even had that little grin on his face that told them that he knew exactly what was going on.

Fiona caught on, too.

“Oh, I get it,” she said and stabbed at her pasta with her fork. She held it up halfway to her mouth before dropping the bomb. “This is to make up for you fucking my brother in the little love-nest you’ve made in the basement.”

Forks crashed to the plates with surprise, Ian’s included.

“No,” Debbie whinged. “He won’t give me anything to keep me quiet anymore.”

-

Later, after the shock of their outing wore off, Carl sat down beside Mickey on the couch and looked at him expectantly. They were settling down for the later part of the evening, where beers were sipped for that relaxing buzz while they watched a movie together.

“What?”

“Does this mean you’ll blow me?”

The drink Lip was trying to have ended up sprayed over the coffee table and eight pairs of confused eyes turned to him sharply.

“Well, Lip’s girlfriend sucked Ian’s dick. Does that mean that Ian’s girlfriend needs to suck mine? Or, you know, boyfriend?”

“Oh my God,” Kev managed to vocalise.

-

They made sure the kids understood why they weren’t allowed to tell anyone about Ian and Mickey being together and Kevin got all the playful teasing out of the way quickly enough.

There had been a very cheeky look in his eye when he asked Ian how he took his coffee when he offered to make him a cup.

Both Carl and Debbie were confused why that had Fiona and Veronica in stitches, laughing their heads off and why Mickey threw an empty can of beer at the taller man’s head.

-

Their behaviour didn’t change around the Gallaghers now that they knew. They weren’t the kind of couple that needed to be touching at all times. Ian never once tried to handfeed Mickey and Mickey didn’t feel the need to hang off Ian. They didn’t use pet-names, didn’t hold hands or shower together.

Carl walked in on them making out on the couch once in the first year. Debbie introduced Mickey to her new boyfriend as Ian’s partner.

They didn’t even notice when they started to cuddle in their sleep when it wasn’t winter.

-

Fiona hadn’t adopted another Milkovich.

She just gained one as an unofficial brother-in-law, which was better.

**Author's Note:**

> This, yeah, I have no excuse for it. I don't know. The idea of Mickey secretly moving in with Ian interests me and it really makes me wonder why all the boys sleep in the same room when there is a perfectly good basement there...


End file.
